


Hitch Hike

by Smoph



Category: Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (1998)
Genre: Alcohol, Drug Use, Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-06
Updated: 2020-09-21
Packaged: 2021-03-06 06:15:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 5,353
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25748749
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Smoph/pseuds/Smoph
Summary: This is my first attempt at writing any kind of coherent story so I'm mostly posting it as a little test. I know these characters are fairly obscure but I still hope people like it.as a warning: these characters use a lot of drugs and drink a lot of alcohol.
Comments: 1
Kudos: 4





	1. The American Dream

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first attempt at writing any kind of coherent story so I'm mostly posting it as a little test. I know these characters are fairly obscure but I still hope people like it.
> 
> as a warning: these characters use a lot of drugs and drink a lot of alcohol.

I was somewhere around Barstow, at the edge of the desert when the heat began to take hold. I was walking along the side of the burnt black road which was not only burnt by the horrible sun that was beaming down on me, but also by the black tires of cars going over a hundred miles per hour that would fly by me every few hours. I heard one of these cars coming at me from behind so I turned around and pushed my arm out and slowly cocked my thumb up to the sky. This car, which I soon saw was a bright Red Shark  Chevrolet convertible with the top down, was still quite a ways away from me. I could still see it from far away, spitting hot dust out of its back wheels. I saw the car quickly pull over in a blur of red. “Holy Jesus!” I said as I threw my body away from the road.  _ The damn thing almost took me out without even realizing it. _ When the dust settled, I was almost blinded by both the shine of the bright paint job, as well as the very colorful clothing that the two men driving the car were wearing; Especially the one with the white bucket hat. The other man sitting in the driver's seat wasn't wearing as much as the first one since he had unbuttoned his shirt and started pouring what smelled like beer on his chest. I most certainly liked the general aura of the first man more. 

At first, I acted very excited and thankful that somebody finally answered my voiceless plea for help. I grabbed my rucksack, that was covered in sand from my skinny arms dragging it along the ground for about an hour after my shoulders finally gave out, and slung it behind my back. Bucket Hat had a fly swatter gripped tight in his hand and he was swatting at what seemed to be absolutely nothing at all. Funnily enough, I felt more  _ pity  _ towards him rather than fear or confusion because he was mumbling to himself about bats in the sky flying around his head. Poor bastard was hallucinating either from the heat or from some sort of drug. His head quickly whips up to look at me while half of his body is perched on the car door like an ape with his arm in the air. “Get in” he says smiling, and it seems as if he isn't seeing bats anymore, or at least has decided to ignore them in favor of talking to me. I threw my bag in the back bench-seat and quickly jumped after it as if I wanted to beat it to the landing, but we didn't move from where the car was parked for a few minutes.

The other man who had been in the driver's seat this whole time has yet to say much of anything that I could hear clearly. Bucket Hat, who had introduced himself as Raoul Duke, jumped into the back seat with me and I could now get a much clearer look at him. He had a cigarette holder in his mouth, he was wearing khaki pants, a black and yellow floral button-down shirt with a few of the top buttons undone to show off part of his chest, and a worn and faded beige jacket with thick multicolored horizontal stripes on the front and back. Duke started to speak to his friend in the front which he called Gonzo, his attorney. I heard coherent sentences come out of Duke’s mouth--most of it being connected by calling Gonzo a “rat bastard” after every other phrase--but only grunts and whines out of Gonzo, almost as if Duke was trying to teach an animal how to speak its own name. 

I was astonished to see that Duke seemed to understand his attorney’s garbled noises enough to keep an active conversation going between them. Two seconds later, Gonzo started screaming louder and spasming in his seat yelling about medicine. This prompted Duke to jump back into the front seat and get out these little sticks filled with some sort of drug from his pockets and crack one open for Gonzo to sniff, then another one for himself. It was quiet for about a minute before Gonzo seemed to forget why they were driving in the middle of the desert. Suddenly, the car started again and flew back on the road. The sudden movement almost made me lose what little lunch I had in me at the time, which was mostly trail mix and a chocolate bar. As Gonzo continued to drive, Duke looked back at me and offered a swig of whatever he was drinking at that moment. Before I answered, I looked up at him and saw a strange kind of happiness in his eyes that was behind all of the drugs that both men have probably been using savagely even before they got into this car. It made me wonder where they were going that warranted so much booze. “Where are you headed, Duke?” I asked as I took the half-empty can from him. I decided not to include Gonzo in that question because I wanted him to pay attention to the road as much as possible through whatever other hallucinations he might've been having, and Duke seemed more comforting to talk to anyway; more manageable. He is still very jittery but he smiles and says that they “are on a trip to find the American Dream.”

He stood up in his seat while the car was starting to reach close to a hundred miles per hour again. For a split second, I actually believed he had stumbled and fallen out of the damn car, breaking every useful bone in his body--then we would've had to carry him to the American Dream. But no, I must have imagined it.  _ Has the heat really been getting to me? Or did I somehow start getting high off of these guys’ stench alone?  _ Duke lazily jumped over the front seat to sit next to me again, and then got comfortable by slinging his arm around the back of my neck so I couldn't escape easily. Despite this, I wasn't very intimidated by him. He started to explain why he and his friend were there in the first place which I probably should have listened to if I ever wanted to turn them into the police. However, instead of paying attention, I just drifted off in my mind. Because Duke was so close to me, my eyes crept down to his collarbone and then slowly back up to his face while he rattled off, noticing every feature of his sweaty neck and jaw before he could realize what I was doing. Duke seemed very anxious. I'm sure he was worried that after they dropped me off I would immediately rat them out for having so much booze and drugs in their system while driving. I could understand why they would be nervous, and the drugs they were on were probably just heightening their anxiety. I didn't even know why they stopped for me in the first place. 

“Are you prejudiced?” he asked me loudly.  _ I don't think he realizes how loud he is yelling.  _ I jolted a bit and quickly turned my eyes to his--which were still covered by his big orange-tinted sunglasses--back from looking at his neck and hoping he didn't see that I was staring. “Answer the question! Are you prejudiced?” he asked again, waving his fly swatter at my face. “Hell no!” He gave a somewhat evil smirk like he would have thrown me out of the car and kept whatever was in my bag if I had said anything else. “I didn't think so.”


	2. Tacos

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Based on a transcript from a recording that was made during one of Hunter Thomson and Oscar Acosta's trips together. The transcript can be found as a chapter of F&L in Las Vegas, and the audio can be found easily on Youtube.

The car started shaking from a rough patch on the road which made me remember the beer can I was holding in my hand. I came very close to dropping and spilling it on the seat. Duke noticed this and snatched the beer out of my hand to drink whatever was left in the can, tipping his head back in the process. While he was doing this, I took another opportunity to stare at his neck and exposed collar. Because his neck was fully extended, his Adam's apple was on full display--jutting out and bobbing up and down as he swallowed the beer. Why am I so engrossed in his features? I can barely look the guy in the eyes. The sound of the empty beer can slipping out of his hand and flying backward, hitting the trunk door, and jumping off onto the road snapped me out of my haze. He whipped his head back up in response to this, almost losing his hat to the road as well. Just for a second I saw underneath his white bucket hat and tried to hold back a smirk of my own. Jesus, he's bald. Every other part of him would lead me to think he had hair long enough for other hippies to braid while on acid. But for some reason, the fact that he's bald made me a little more comfortable around him. He seemed somewhat more of a respectable citizen just from that one feature. A typical Hell’s Angel has long unkempt hair and a big beard in order to look as menacing as possible so my subconscious was probably comparing Duke to the Angles’ disheveled look as being part of their lifestyle. Gonzo has been practically silent behind the wheel ever since Duke gave him those drugs to help with his “bad heart.” I wonder if he's seeing the bats now too.   
Duke made sure his hat was back on his head and violently turned to look at me. “What are you laughing at!? Did one of them get on me?” At first, I didn't know what he meant by “them,” but I could only assume he was referring to the imaginary bats in the sky that were following us. I think he took my wide-eyed and confused expression as a silent “yes” so he, once again, started panicking and using his trusty fly swatter to smack himself this time. I was worried he was going to fall out of the car so I leaned over him to try to take the fly swatter out of his hand. Before I could even process what was happening, Duke grabbed both of my wrists (dropping the fly swatter), threw me down onto the seat, and straddled my legs. He reached over the front seat to get a gun that was wrapped in a brown paper bag and put it to my neck. “I think she's a spy!” he screamed at Gonzo, while still keeping his gaze on me. I gave him a stern look back so he would know I wasn't afraid. I knew the gun wasn't loaded because when they brought it out earlier, Gonzo held it up to the sky and fired multiple times without anything happening. If they had bullets, they were somewhere else.   
I was able to slip one hand out of his grip fairly easily. He was still high on something which probably made his hand-eye coordination weaker than he thought it was before he decided I was an undercover spy. He gave me a confused look when I lightly pressed my hand on his chest in an attempt to push him off of me enough so I could at least sit up again. I couldn't tell if the look he gave me was for why and how my hand was on his chest, or why I wasn't more panicked about the obvious gun pressed against my throat. He resisted when I pushed my hand harder into his chest. Even though the gun wasn't loaded, I still wanted to get out of that position. Duke was shaking me around and asking me questions about who I worked for and how I found them. The last thing I wanted to do was get violent with him since he was clearly still twisted on drugs and I didn't know what other weapons they had stashed away in the car.  
Finally, after what felt like an eternity of being shaken like a limp ragdoll, Gonzo shouted over his shoulder to Duke saying that he wanted tacos. Duke pulled his head up to look around while also pulling his legs up from straddling me, and back to a normal sitting position as he started rustling through his bag for something. There was a dusty green street sign further down the road that would direct us to nearby restaurants. The sign had a few bullet holes through it. Many people--around the time of the Mint 400--would come out to the desert for shooting practice. This fact clearly took its toll on whatever pitiful signs, rocks, or old cars were in the vicinity. The sign listed the names of random little restaurants that were all sitting on the same long stretch of road. While I tried to read it, Duke finally found what he was searching for in his bag: a tape recorder with a microphone plugged into the side. He clicked a button on the panel to start recording their desperate search for food. Most of the restaurants we were driving by sold mostly fast food, which is understandable. Most people that are driving down a straight road in the middle of the desert weren't looking to stick around for long, and the same applied to the drugged-out “doctors” in the car with me. Duke crawled back into the passenger's seat next to Gonzo to continue their discussion about the quality of a taco based on its price. This left me, once again, all alone in the back seat, now slightly tousled from being manhandled by a “doctor of journalism.”   
The car started to slow down a little as Gonzo stared at the buildings along the road, probably trying to choose one.   
“Right up here! tacos--Terry’s taco stand,” said Gonzo,  
“Let's get some coffee, too,” Duke added.  
I hadn't realized it until that moment, but I was viciously hungry. I wasn't thirsty anymore, as I thought I would be, since there was enough beer in the car to keep a whole group of outlaws drunk for at least a night. However, the thought of tacos made me realize how uncomfortable I should've been feeling this whole time if I wasn't so distracted by my new friends. The car came to a gracefully slow stop near the taco stand, which I was unbelievably grateful for since my throat started to loosen and I felt the bile slowly rise up out of my stomach. realistically, I didn't think I was actually going to be sick, but the feeling was tortuous enough to make me lie down on the seat--this time of my own accord. Gonzo stepped out of the car, and Duke grabbed his recorder and started to follow him. He looked back and saw that I didn't look very good, so he threw me the keys and told me to open the trunk and get whatever I wanted out of it. I had no idea what he meant but I gingerly got up and out of the car and made my way over to the trunk while they got their tacos. The trunk popped open and all I saw inside was a big silver case and the rest of their beer supply sitting behind it. The case didn't seem to be locked at all so I opened it up only to find it filled to the brim with all kinds of heinous substances neatly organized in different compartments and pockets. My stomach then started to violently growl which prompted me to take the case with me and run over to the taco stand to get one for myself. Something in my head told me that those guys were not the type to buy anything for a complete stranger out of the kindness of their hearts. When I got to the window of the stand where the worker--a young-looking girl--was talking to Gonzo, she was giving directions to “The American Dream,” which was apparently a building where doped up teenagers liked to hang out. While this was happening, Duke and I ordered our food and waited for Gonzo to be done with his idle chit-chat with the girl. He didn't seem to be twisted anymore, or if he was, it was definitely less than before when he could barely say a single word clearly.


	3. Nap in the Back Seat

Duke saw that I had his case in my hand and after we got our food, he led me back to the car while we waited for Gonzo. From what I could tell by just looking at him while we walked, Duke was also off his high and starting to act somewhat normal again. He didn't seem to think I was a government spy anymore. When we got back to the car, I checked my bag under the back seat to make sure everything was still in order while Duke made his way to the front of the car and opened up his drug-case on the hood. He whistled to get my attention and flagged me over to him. We both still had a taco in one of our hands, half wrapped in paper, while he proceeded to describe their arsenal.

“Alright, what are you in the mood for?” he asked. “We have two bags of grass, seventy-five pellets of mescaline, five sheets of high-powered blotter acid, a salt shaker half full of cocaine.” I took a bite out of my taco as he continued his presentation. “We also have a whole galaxy of multi-colored uppers, downers, screamers, laughers…” he eventually finished and waited for some kind of response out of me. “I think I'll just smoke some grass to calm down.” He nodded and gave me one of the two bags of weed and little sheets of paper to roll it with. While this was happening, Gonzo ended his conversation with the girl and walked back over to us with an address written on a napkin in one hand, and a taco in the other. While he quickly ate, Duke and I sat in the back seat to light up. He brought out a lighter from the pocket of his jacket and lit my joint before he lit his own. I couldn't help but think of how much of a “southern gentleman” he was when he wasn't fending off imaginary bats. I was starting to feel a lot safer and more relaxed with them. That could've been the weed talking or the fact that both of them weren't as anxious as before, but either way, I was comfortable enough to lay down on the seat again and fully relax. I had been walking in the hot sun all day so in my mind, these guys were a godsend. Duke was sitting next to me with one arm stretched across the seat, and one arm up in the air making a waving motion with his hand, his legs slightly spread, and his head tilted all the way back. Without thinking, I pulled up my legs and rested them on his lap to be fully stretched out on the seat. In response to this, he moved his arm to scratch his leg through his pants and then rested his hand on my knee. Neither one of us cared about the obvious breach of each other's personal space. Thinking about it now, I don't think Duke ever had an issue with personal space the entire time I was in that car with them. Gonzo lazily slumps back into the driver's seat, crumples up the taco wrapper into a ball, and throws it behind him at Duke’s head which makes him break out of whatever daydream he was having and grunt loudly while he pushed his head up. I don't know if Gonzo aimed for his head, or if he just got lucky, but to distract from what he just did, he quickly started up the car and continued down the road. The slow rumble of the car and the wind blowing on my cheek was enough to make me close my eyes and fall asleep. 

I woke up and opened my eyes after what felt like days. At first, I was hit with a pang of panic. I didn't remember where I was or what was happening, and the only thing I could see was the back of a white leather car seat. My mouth was dry and my tongue was hot and my eyes were glued half-shut by a dried crust. I jerked a little and wiped both my eyes while I turned onto my back to see the sky. Before I could finish the motion and get comfortable again, I realized where I was laying the whole time when I saw Duke’s chin directly above me. I was laying my head on his lap while he continued to sleep with his own head tilted back once more. Part of me wanted to immediately sit up and slap him awake. But for some reason, I felt afraid to disturb him during what was probably the first nap he's had in 45 straight hours. I let my neck relax into his lap again but right after I did this I realized I was so thirsty I couldn't even swallow properly. The inside of my throat was slowly choking me the more I focused on it, so I finally decided to raise my head up slowly enough to not bother Duke. It was like I awoke to find myself sleeping on a hibernating bear instead of a wacked out journalist. Once I was sitting completely straight again, I looked under my feet for the case of beer they kept in the back. Before, Duke kept it under his bag to try to keep it out of the sun as much as possible. But after he rummaged around for his tape recorder, the beer was moved right into view of the sun for however long we were both sleeping for. I leaned down to grab a can from the pack and groaned to myself after I felt that it was hot. Nonetheless, I pulled the tab open and chugged it down which made the inside of my mouth feel instantly better. After throwing the empty can out of the car, I looked up at Gonzo who has been completely silent while driving this whole time. “How long have we been out?” I asked loudly, trying to be heard through the wind. He jolted a bit, not realizing I was awake and looked at me through the rearview mirror. “About two and a half hours. that reminds me…” he swerved the car out of the road and parked it on the side. Surprisingly, the screeching of tires on the road or the sudden stop of the car didn't rouse Duke out of his sleep. But the sound of Gonzo opening and closing the trunk made him wake up with a shriek. Gonzo walked back to the front of the car, whacking Duke on the chest with the back of his hand, while his other hand was holding their case full of drugs. He clicked open the case on top of the car’s hood again while Duke opened the door and flopped out of the car like a dried-out fish hanging onto its last string of life before it goes over the edge. He walked like he hasn't used his muscles in a year. I decided to jump into the passenger’s seat to see what they were doing through the windshield. Gonzo took out their salt shaker of cocaine and tried to shake a little bit out onto what looked like a postcard. However, right at that moment, a strong gust of wind came by and blew most of the cocaine into his face. Both men groaned loudly. “Did you see what GOD just did to us, man??” Gonzo screamed in Duke’s face. “God didn't do that, you did it!” Duke yelled back. “You’re a fucking narcotics agent, I knew it!” I watched them continue to fight and scream into each other’s faces with wild hand motions and strange out of place laughter at some points. While this was happening, I looked behind me down the road only to see a young-looking teenage boy with long blonde hair and a white shirt with some weird illustration on it.


	4. Hes Got To Go

He was carrying a bag similar to mine behind his back and was slowly walking down the road toward us. I quickly turned my head back to the two yelling men and tapped the windshield to get their attention, pointing back to the kid with my thumb. Gonzo seemed to notice him first--he stared at the kid and mumbles “let's give that boy a lift!” Duke and I looked at each other with the same panicked expression on our face--we both did not want to give the boy a lift. I was opposed to it mostly because the presence of a third stranger would interfere with my time with the other two. I was just getting to know Duke and Gonzo, and now this little punk was going to ruin it! I could only assume the reason Duke looked so worried was that he didn't want to share any more of his drug supply. They were going to need as much as they could get to find the American Dream. The boy saw us in the distance and started running happily to us. “Hot damn, I've never ridden inside a convertible before!” he screamed as he approached the back of the car. Before he could get close enough, I quickly jumped into the back seat, claiming the spot near my own bag. I looked like a nervous bird protecting its eggs from a predator. Duke’s tape recorder was also sitting in the back seat next to his stuff which made him mimic me and defend his property from this mysterious animal. This forced the kid to sit in the front passenger seat next to Gonzo. “Is that right?” Gonzo said to the kid as he leaned over to the passenger-side door to open it for him. “We're your friends, and we're not like the others.” He looked a little hesitant--like he finally got a good look at the three of us and was having second thoughts. It seemed like he was contemplating for a minute whether or not we were to be trusted, but he knew at this point it was too late to turn back. The kid chuckled awkwardly and slowly sat next to Gonzo without saying a word, while Duke and I fumbled through our bags to find the warm beer under them. We both got the boy’s attention and offered him some beer as well, which he declined, and I started to feel a strong sense of déjà vu. I was in this boy’s position only half a day ago, but already I felt like I knew Duke and Gonzo for so much longer. However, the familiarity was evolving into anxiety and panic. I didn't want to share my newfound friendship with this greasy, long-haired hoodlum of the desert--I had to get rid of him somehow. During all of this, the car hadn't gone back on the road as we decided to take a beer break. During this time, I hopped out of my seat and walked over to the hood of the car where the silver case was still sitting. Before I could open it I had to clean off the cocaine that spilled all over it. At first, I was just going to brush it off to the side, but then I looked up at Gonzo in the driver's seat and walked over to him with the case. I held it up to his face without saying anything and it took him a few seconds to realize what I wanted. He glanced down at the top of the case which was coated in white dust. After seeing this, he gripped the case, and hurriedly started to lick the dust off. I caught a glimpse of the kid’s face out of the corner of my eye, and all I saw was pure anxiety. He was wide-eyed and sweating while discreetly staring at Gonzo licking the case. I smiled and walked to the back seat with the cleaned off case in hand after pulling it away from Gonzo. As I sat down, Duke grabbed my arm and pulled my face close to his and whispered “what if he thinks we’re lost members of the Manson family?” I made a half-smirk at that comment, wondering if it would be possible to convince this boy that we were such people. While glancing at both Duke and Gonzo, and then back to the boy it didn't seem like it would be that difficult. Especially with the giant case of drugs that had yet to be opened in front of the kid. He had no idea how loaded that car actually was. Duke didn't seem to want to pay much attention to our new friend in the front seat, so he discreetly cracked open the case while it was still on my lap and took something out with two fingers. We both could tell that the kid was looking at us through the rearview mirror so Duke quickly slid down the seat onto the floor of the car to take whatever drug he picked out.  
About an hour and a half later, I could hear Duke, leaning over the car door, quietly mumbling to himself while staring a hole into the back of the kid’s head. I could only decipher parts of what he was saying through all of the wind. Things like “cut his head off…” and “can’t turn him loose...,” and “run us down like dogs…” After about a minute of listening closely to what he was saying, he straightened up, looking confused, and said “Jesus, did I say that, or just think it?” Hearing Duke talk to himself made the kid even more noticeably nervous and jittery. Gonzo could also tell he was uncomfortable so he handed him his half-empty beer can that he was drinking as a gesture to calm his nerves. The kid decided to take the beer and started to sip the remainder of it very cautiously. Once it was all gone, the car hit a particularly big bump on the road which caused the kid to drop the can at his feet. I watched him lean forward to retrieve it and saw his back flinch a bit. When he finally sat back up, he had his empty beer can in his left hand, and a dirty plastic bag filled with the missing bullets from the gun in his right hand. He held the bag delicately with his thumb and index finger as if it had some sort of disease on it. Before reacting to this unpleasant discovery, I looked at Duke and Gonzo once more for some sort of confirmation or silent plea to do something. I already knew that Duke didn't want the kid in the car as much as I did, but I wasn't so sure about Gonzo. He didn't seem too worried about Duke when he was anxious about the boy, and he also didn't seem phased when the boy was anxious about Duke. I quickly deduced that everyone in the car would be happier if the kid was gone. I wrenched my arm down under my seat to retrieve the gun that was pressed against my own throat not too long ago and pointed it at the back of his head. Once the click of the hammer was heard, both Duke and the kid shrieked loudly causing Gonzo to swerve the car around a few times before finally pulling over again.


End file.
